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What's the difference?
Before we dive in, this isn’t your typical road test.
That’s because there’s no road, per se. Instead, the majority of what you’re about to read comes from The Bend Motorsport Park in South Australia.
You’ve read the headline, though, so you’re probably putting it all together: a Honda Civic Type R on a well-liked race track must be bliss. Let’s find out.
A very quick catch-up for those not in the know. The Honda Civic Type R (or CTR if you like) is the brand’s only performance model on sale after the demise of the NSX supercar.
The current (FL5) CTR is a little over a year old, having been launched internationally in late 2022, but has only been on Aussie shores for a little while. In fact, we’ve already reviewed it for the road, back in April.
But Honda Australia was keen to get media behind the wheel in a setting it says the CTR thrives in - a racetrack. Its predecessor was a car loved almost universally, can this one live up to the new standard?
Remember mid-size sedans? Once pretty popular with smaller families, they’ve largely gone the way of dial-up internet, thanks in no small part to our insatiable appetite for SUVs in Australia, which shows absolutely no sign of slowing down.
According to the most recent vehicle sales data release, there are just seven choices left in a once-crowded segment, one of which is this, the Skoda Octavia, which is also available as a wagon – another body style that's been left by the wayside in the SUV crush.
So are we right to rush to SUVs instead of vehicles just like this one? Or should you be cross-shopping the Skoda Octavia before you commit to a high-rider?
Let’s find out, shall we?
In the realm of factory-built performance road cars for less than six-figures, the track capability offered by the Civic Type R is hard to rival.
The way it communicates and encourages smooth driving is impressive. Its mechanical grip limits are clear well before you reach them and the car is very forgiving with small slides and gentle lift-off oversteer. It lets you know you’re approaching the limits well before you hit ‘em.
Performance hatchbacks from Volkswagen, the Golf GTI and R, are arguably more useable day to day, but don’t come close dynamically. The Hyundai i30 N is wicked fun and deceptively capable for its lower price, but lacks the Type R’s high-shine polish.
Is the FL5 Type R pricey? Yes. Is it worth it? Maybe.
Is it probably the last time a purely combustion-powered hot hatch is going to be this good? Almost certainly.
Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.
This is motoring at its easiest. Powerful but not too powerful, firm but not too firm, and loaded with all the cabin technology 2021 calls for, and more.
We'd like to see more of the safety kit arrive as standard, and to tone down the engine noise in the cabin under heavy acceleration, but if your shopping for a mid-size SUV, then the Octavia Style sedan has earned its place on your consideration list before you sign those papers.
The last Type R was divisive to say the least - rather sharp and aggressive styling reminiscent of a robot from a 1990s anime, with plenty of design details and enough black trim to give white CTR’s that Star Wars stormtrooper vibe.
It was loved and hated, and there seemed to be few who found their opinion in the middle of those.
This generation changes that.
Much softer styling and a more restrained approach to detail makes this Type R look much more mature - for better or worse, depending on your view - than the last, though it hasn't lost much of its ‘look at me’ factor.
Sleeker headlights, softer lines in both body panels and in places like the grille, as well as a smaller hood vent are all clear.
Aerodynamics played a big part in the design of this car, with Honda Australia’s tech team telling us the time it spent in the wind tunnel during development was so long they wanted to get press photography done there.
The small flick or canard ahead of the rear wheel, for example, directs air into the rear wheel to cool the brakes.
Of course, there’s still a great big wing mounted to the rear. How else are you going to know it’s a Type R? For that, you could also look down to the tri-exit exhaust, we suppose.
This is always a controversial segment. Eye of the beholder and all that. Still, let's dive in.
For mine, the Skoda looks sharp and handsome, with clean, crisp lines and a definite premium feel to the overall design language.
But... whether it's simply the white shade of our test car or the fact that mid-size sedans are a little out of favour, it manages to look a little bland from outside, and like the kind of vehicle that could be sold in bulk for fleets.
That's not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. Plenty of cars are over-designed and as such, age terribly. The Skoda's design, while not pulse-quickening, does feel timeless.
Outside, there's a kind of power-dome 'V' running through the centre of the bonnet, that leads to the thin headlights – made up of individual clusters – that are framed by slick-looking LEDs.
The Skoda grille is a series of 3D slats that jut out from the front end, while the bottom is all black plastic mesh, giving this Octavia a vaguely sporty vibe.
The vehicle's flanks are embellished with two sharp creases, one at the shoulder line and one at the belt line, which run the length of the Octavia, too, and step to the rear and you'll find a fairly simple boot area, with sharply angled brake lights and clean lettering across the boot.
Inside, some of the cabin materials might leave a little to be desired, but it is a really modern, clean-feeling, tech-savvy space.
The steering wheel is thick and chunky and feels great to hold, the cabin dials make a satisfying and tactile click when you turn them, and there's a kind of textured, layered effect to the dash with a nice mix of materials, including a metallic-look dash panel that runs from the passenger side to driver side.
There's an attention to detail here that you notice – even the black plastic panelling used has been perforated to elevate it slightly above the standard cabin fare.
The Civic Type R is a four-seat hatchback, so if you were looking to cart four of your nearest and dearest around regularly, you may need to look elsewhere.
However, for a car that holds front-wheel drive lap records at circuits like Mount Panorama and indeed The Bend, it’s a pretty convenient thing.
Its tech behind the 9.0-inch multimedia screen is a little dated, but it’s still functional and most will use phone mirroring often enough that the native system is an occasional necessity.
In terms of the physical practicality, it benefits from the glow-up the standard Civic has undergone.
Physical controls for the climate remain (good!) and there are two very useable cupholders and a relatively well-sized storage bin under the elbow rest.
The seats are well-bolstered and comfortable in the front, providing the duality of a car that will hold you stable during track driving and be plush enough to keep you comfy on the drive home.
In the back, only two passengers can sit in the Type R despite the car being spacious enough for a third seat to at least be an option. Instead there’s a permanently accessible cupholder, but no armrest.
It is very spacious, with ample knee room and possibly even enough headroom for rear passengers to wear helmets if the idea of a four-up track lap takes your fancy.
Behind that, 411 litres of boot space is impressive for the segment, though the boot’s lip is fairly high and rounded at the sides.
It's clever, the Skoda Octavia, and that story begins in the boot, which opens to reveal a seriously large and seriously usable 600 litre space. While not that deep, it's wide and long, and with out test car fitted with a spider's web of netting, there was tons of space and storage options for everything we needed to carry.
Short answer? For me, it's all the space and storage I need. SUVs be damned.
Up front, the centre screen is clear and simple to use, as is the secondary digital screen behind the driver's steering wheel. And there's just a few little surprise and delight features, too, like the bar that controls volume via touch, or the Smart AC settings which offer to "warm your feet" or deliver "fresh air".
Your comfort features are on point, too, with two USB ports up front, two cup holders, and plenty of headroom, and plenty of shoulder space between you and the passenger next to you.
The backseat is impressive, too, although the swept-back nature of the roof line does start to impede headroom ever so slightly, but knee room, toe room and shoulder room are really good, and I suspect you could even fit a third person across this middle row of seats without too much drama.
Skoda Simply Clever features abound, like the mobile phone storage pocket in the seatbacks, which are part of the larger seat pocket so you don't lose your device. There are two child ISOFIX attachment points and two cup holders in the rear, too.
Honda’s relatively new retail business structure means some sting is taken out of the Civic Type R’s $72,600 price tag as it’s drive-away. No on-road fees.
But it’s still well north of the $50,990, before on-roads, the previous generation FK8 version started from, and there’s not a huge list of additional features you’ll find in the cabin.
Dual-zone climate control, a wireless smartphone charger, 9.0-inch touchscreen with Android Auto and wireless Apple CarPlay, ambient lighting, all features that didn’t garner much attention at 200km/h down The Bend’s main straight.
However, the Type R’s impressive 'LogR' track day telemetry and lap timing software, bright red bucket seats and Alcantara-wrapped steering wheel, aluminium pedals and gearshift knob made of the same were all put to proper use.
The LogR app for your smartphone allows you to take the data recorded by the CTR on track and analyse it, compare your lap with others (even from other drivers) at the same track, and can even automatically score and give feedback on your laps.
Personally, I wasn’t particularly upset to find out I was significantly slower than 2022 TCR Champion and general Australian motorsport veteran Tony D’Alberto.
There’s no sunroof, leather trim, seat heating or ventilation, no head-up display or even power-adjust for the driver’s seat. But more expensive (and sometimes less capable) sports cars are sold for more money with fewer mod-cons.
The Skoda Octavia Style 110TSI sedan starts at from $37,790 drive away, and is pretty comprehensively equipped for that money. It also has a wagon sibling, which is yours for $39,260 drive away, or for more thrills, the fire-breathing RS version is $51,490 drive away ($52,990 wagon).
Let’s stay with the Style for a moment. Outside, it rides on 18-inch alloy wheels and gets LED headlights, satellite navigation, keyless locking, LED DRLs and heated mirrors, while inside, there’s fabric seats, dual-zone climate, an air-conditioned glove box, push-button start, a slick gear selector and ambient interior lighting.
But where the Skoda truly shines is in the tech department, which is seriously impressive. It starts with a 10.0-inch touchscreen, equipped with wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, leaving you free to stick your phone on the wireless charging pad. All of that kit is joined by Skoda’s very good Virtual Cockpit, which digitises the driver’s binnacle, and adds a seriously premium air to the cabin experience.
Safety? There’s lots. But we’ll get to that in a moment.
Like the last Type R, this hot hatch boasts a highly-strung turbocharged 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder engine under the bonnet, complete with red engine cover and Type R badging.
The new iteration of this engine makes 235kW at 6500rpm and 420Nm between 2600 and 4000rpm, with much of the 7.0kW/20Nm increase over the last car making itself known all the way through the rev range.
For changing gears, a six-speed manual gearbox with auto-rev matching - should you choose to keep it active - is the only option. That gearbox transfers power to the front wheels only, as is traditional.
The drivetrain can be adjusted for intensity via the drive modes, 'Comfort', 'Sport', '+R' (which saw plenty of use on this test) and 'Individual'.
The Skoda Octavia Style is powered by a 1.4-litre TSI petrol engine, producing a 110kW at 6000rpm and 250Nm from 1500rpm.
That's enough grunt, Skoda says, to clip 100km/h in nine seconds, and it will push on to a flying top speed of 223km/h.
That power is fed through an eight-speed torque converter automatic gearbox and sent to the front tyres.
Honda says the Type R’s official combined cycle fuel consumption figure is 8.9L/100km, the last-gen car’s figure was 8.8L/100km.
Of course, we didn’t get to test fuel efficiency on the track and if we did, we can’t imagine it would have been incredible. The car's 47-litre tank needed a refuel during our session.
But last time we drove the Type R, we spent a week and about 500km testing the hot hatch and found it used 11.5L/100km, not too far from the claim and reasonable for a car of this performance pedigree.
Skoda says its Octavia will sip 5.7L/100km on the combined cycle (5.9L/100km for the wagon), and emit 131g/km of C02.
Our test vehicle was displaying an average 8.8L/100km over our 200-odd-kilometres with the car, but I have been accused of having a heavier than average foot.
It sips 95RON fuel, and its tank will hold some 45 litres of the good stuff.
This is the bit you want, yeah? What’s it like behind the wheel of the new Civic Type R when road surfaces are at their best and a speed limit isn’t of concern?
Having spent plenty of time behind the wheel of the last CTR, two key words come to mind... familiar and refined.
Where the last generation at times felt on the sharp, tense edge even without sacrificing ability, the new Type R smooths out a lot of the minimal shortcomings of the last generation, just as it has for the exterior styling.
Its setting is relatively firm and direct, but not too heavy for track stints, with good communicative feedback for steering inputs.
It allows for smoother steering and a sense of how hard you can steer without over-shifting weight. Which in itself is another impressive aspect of the CTR, how smoothly you’re able to transfer weight not only in cornering but under braking and acceleration.
The 1429kg hot hatch will only complain gently with some tyre noise if you’re approaching it's fairly lofty limitations, the car’s inherent mechanical grip working well with the Michelin Pilot 4Ss.
For a front-drive car, its rear feels impressively planted, a trait the FK8 surprised many with, to the point that a regular comment from media and professional drivers is that it’s hard to believe the CTR is FWD.
Under hard braking, the rear stays steady, allowing plenty of control if you come in too hot for a corner. The pads and rotors seemed to hold up with a lot of track time, too.
Power and torque delivery feel familiar if you’ve spent time in an FK8, even pulling out of tight-ish corners in third acceleration doesn't disappoint.
Its gearbox, too, might be one of the best feeling shifters around at the moment.
With or without rev-matching, a downshift in the FL5 feels smooth, visceral, and results in an engine whine that makes you feel like this car is more at home on a circuit than a boulevard.
The FL5’s abilities are on show in a smoother manner than its predecessor, and it makes the car more encouraging to drive quickly and smoothly.
While rough inputs will still yield impressive results, the FL5 CTR’s a surprisingly comfortable thing to drive rapidly through bends and under hard braking.
Handling, acceleration (a claimed 0-100km/h in 5.1sec and we don’t doubt it), grip and cornering, braking, and now more than ever, comfort. At the risk of gushing, it’s hard to fault the Type R on track.
This might be the best front-wheel drive performance car of all time.
Sink into the driver’s seat, push the start button and use the cool-looking, but a little cheap-feeling, shift-by-wire gear selector to choose Drive, and you’re almost immediately reminded why we all loved lower-riding cars so much more than those big and often billowy SUVs of yesteryear.
This Octavia doesn’t pretend to be a sports car - there’s the RS to handle those duties — but the mere fact you’re sitting lower to the ground leaves you feeling closer and more connected to the road surface below you, rather than like you’re towering above it.
You also feel like you’re sitting in the Skoda, not on it, and all of this — combined with a firmer (but not too firm) suspension tune, good steering and the low 1500rpm arrival of peak torque — ensures the Octavia delivers a more engaging drive experience than its exterior design probably suggests.
There are some downsides, however, one of which being that, on take-off, the engine isn’t as smooth or as quiet as it could be, and because the power arrives so quickly, it can also feel a little like it’s surging a little in slow-moving traffic. The flip-side to that, though, is a car that feels responsive, and when you dart around a slow-moving vehicle to overtake the power is there when you need it.
We ventured out on the freeway to see how the little petrol engine performed at the legal speed limit, and I can tell you that long-distance travel is also right in the Octavia’s wheelhouse, too.
It climbs to 110km/h quickly and smoothly, and while the cabin noise increases at speed – mostly from the tyres and wind – it's not overly annoying, and it is well insulated from the sounds of other cars. The ride on the freeway is fantastic, while the steering feels weighted and direct, inspiring more confidence at speed.
There are more powerful cars out there, including in the broader Octavia range, but to be honest, you don't really need more grunt than is on offer here, other than for bragging rights.
It's a comfortable and usually composed offering from Skoda, this Octavia, and will definitely tick plenty of boxes.
ANCAP hasn’t crash-tested the current generation Honda Civic, though its European counterpart Euro NCAP has, awarding it a full five stars.
It scored relatively well for occupant safety (89 per cent for adults and 87 per cent for children) while being adequate in terms of pedestrian (82 per cent) and active safety assist (83 per cent).
While it’s possible the Type R would have minor differences, it’s safe to take the results of that test as a relatively accurate measure of the CTR’s safety performance.
It features eight airbags, including front, front knee, and rear passenger-side impact, and full-length curtain airbags.
In terms of active and intervention safety, there’s Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB), lane keep assist and departure warning, blind-spot warning, rear cross-traffic alert, parking sensors and a reversing camera, plus traffic sign assist and driver monitoring.
The Skoda Octavia scored a five-star ANCAP safety rating when crash-tested in 2019, and arrives with plenty of active and passive safety features.
That story starts with eight airbags and the usual braking and traction aids, but then steps up to more advanced stuff, like AEB with pedestrian and cyclist detection, as well as a reversing camera, front and rear parking sensors, and a self-parking function.
If you want the really advanced stuff, like blind spot detection, rear cross-traffic alert, or Lane Assist with lane guidance, you'll need to shell out for the optional Luxury Pack, which arrives with plenty of other goodies, too.
The Type R is covered by the same warranty and servicing as any other Civic, which is a huge score when it comes to high-performance cars and the costs usually associated with them.
Honda’s five-year/unlimited kilometre warranty is fairly standard these days, but it includes roadside assistance.
Servicing is a flat fee of $199 per interval for five years, which come in every 12 months or 10,000km.
Your Octavia is covered by a five-year, unlimited-kilometre warranty, and you a get a five years of free roadside assistance, provided you service your vehicle at a Skoda dealership.
Speaking of which, services are due every 12 months or 15,000kms, and Skoda's service calculator will tell you what each service will cost. To save you the trouble, you're looking at $301, $398, $447, $634 and $447 for the first five services.